You may have heard about the “intoxicated pelican” that has been making a splash in the news this week. Granted, it’s not every day that a brown pelican crashes into the windshield of a car after being poisoned from a naturally occurring toxin found in algae blooms in California. This type of poisoning actually caused the invasion of frantic birds back in ’61 that inspired Hitchcock’s classic film The Birds.
But where is the buzz around the bigger story? Starving baby pelicans have been washing up on California beaches in disturbing numbers. Some are suggesting the emaciated birds are the result of a shortage of the sardines, anchovies, and other small fish on which pelicans feed. Perhaps pelicans will become the poster child of overfishing, the way polar bears are for global warming.
As for our tipsy friend in California? “She’s hanging in there,” said Lisa Birkle, assistant wildlife director at the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach.
